Edible coatings are commonly used in frozen confectionery products. They provide a texture or taste contrast and improve the organoleptic properties of the product. On the other hand, coatings have the essential function of delaying melting of the ice confectionery coated therewith and preventing the latter from dripping during consumption.
The most commonly used coatings in the frozen dessert industry are fat-based coatings. These usually consist in milk, sugar, cocoa and fat. However, these coatings are high in calorie and high in fat which make them usually not healthy.
Water-based coatings are also known in the art. WO 0130175 describes for instance an aqueous-based coating for ice confections including sorbets. The coating there-described is based on a water-ice solution typically comprising sugars, stabilisers, fruit solids, citric acids, colours and water.
EP 2025241 relates as well to water-based compositions for coating frozen confections. These compositions are based on the use of saccharides and polysaccharides.
Coatings have shown to be particularly useful for the increasingly popular bite-sized ice confectioneries. However, the coatings used in such bite-sized products must demonstrate, in addition to the usual mechanical properties required for single packaged products, additional characteristics so as to prevent individual products in contact in the same packaging from sticking to each other.
Now, low fat water-based coatings known up to date do not constitute solutions to this problem and in particular do not provide sufficient non sticking effect to fulfil the high standards commanded by this type of application.